Have friends who flood you with too many mentions and retweets? Don't unfollow them and earn their wrath–learn to mute their tweets instead.

What happens when you block someone on Twitter? I want to block a friend who tweets at me too much and who's constantly being retweeted by others, but I don't want him to find out.

It would be very hard for someone who interacts with you a lot not to find out that he's been blocked. Once you block someone, that person can't follow you, read your tweets on his or her timeline, or put you on lists. In turn, you won't see any mentions of that person or @ replies on your timeline.

However, a block won't completely sever Twitter ties. The blocked person can still mention you and, unless your account is private, copy and paste text from your Twitter homepage to retweet itthough you'll see none of that activity if you don't visit his or her timeline.

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There is a simple solution, though. Use Twitter from an app rather than the website, and then you can filter out any mentions of the person without blocking him. I like TweetDeck, an app intended for power users that can sort tweets into customizable columns. The program also allows you to "mute" tweets that match either a certain keyword (or set of words) or a username. Mute your friend and your timeline will be rid of him without any hurt feelings.